


Nothing Lasts Forever

by taylor_writes



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Heavy Angst, I'm Sorry, Immortality, M/M, Minor Character Death, Period-Typical Homophobia, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 08:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8439292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_writes/pseuds/taylor_writes
Summary: Jack remembered the first day, that glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, Bittle was like him. He looked unbelievably young, too young to be in high school much less college. But the years went on, and Jack’s hope vanished.Bittle was human.And Jack was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Guns 'N' Roses "November Rain"  
> The + and - are in years, with +0 being the current timeline in Bitty's senior year.  
> If it makes you feel better, I cried while writing this.  
> Come yell with me on [tumblr](http://omg-zimbits-trash.tumblr.com)

**+0**

“Hey! Stop that or else you won’t be getting any of this pie!” Bitty laughed and jumped away from the apple slice Jack threw at him.

Jack just smiled and threw another one. There was no way Bitty would deny him pie, and they both knew it.

It was a relaxing Sunday afternoon in the Haus, but then again, all their afternoons had been relaxing since they’d come out. It was so nice not to have to worry about anything. Jack had never been happier.

“Time for pie!” Bitty called up the stairs, and within seconds the entire team was in the kitchen, ready to fight to be the first one to get a slice of apple pie fresh out of the oven. 

But he just ignored them, and passed the first slice right over their heads to Jack who was sitting at the table.

“Bitty, that’s no fair! How come he gets pie first just because he’s your boyfriend?” Chowder whined. “I’m practically your son!”

 

**+3**

Bitty’s graduation was two years ago already, but it’s hardly felt like a week. Since Bitty had moved to Providence, Jack’s life was so much brighter. He never wanted this to end.

Jack fiddled with the box in his pocket as they walked through the campus for homecoming weekend. The rest of the team was already in Faber waiting.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (ha, if only, Jack thought sadly), they reached the ice and laced up their skates.

“You brought me all this way just to skate here again?” Bitty was understandably confused, since the practice rink for the Falconers was much closer, and much better. 

“Well, it’s where we first played together,” Jack replied. “It’s special to me.”

Bitty was off, twirling around the ice like he belonged there. Like it was his home. 

Jack remembered the first day, that glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, Bittle was like him. He looked unbelievably young, too young to be in high school much less college. But the years went on, and Jack’s hope vanished. 

Bittle was human.

And Jack was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

 

**-104**

“Zimms, I gotta tell you a secret,” Parson whispered into the darkness of the room. 

No response. Parson shook his shoulder gently, trying to wake up his boyfriend, who was exhausted from all their…activities.

“Zimms. Wake up.”

“Mmh?” Zimms was in no state to handle a conversation. It would be another several hours before the pills wore off.

“I’m not human.”

“Sure, whatever Kenny. Go back to sleep.” And with that, Jack rolled over, ending the conversation.

He didn’t even remember it the next morning.

 

**+3**

This was it, this was the moment. Bittle skated over, cheeks flushed and grinning.

“Don’t you wanna come join me? It’s always more fun to have a skating partner! Plus, maybe you can help me with some of those jumps I’ve been worki-”  
His words cut off as Jack dropped to one knee and pulled out the box he’d been carrying around every day for a year, waiting for the right time. He looked to the stands and saw their teammates waiting with a “Congratulations” banner. He hoped they’d need it.

“Bitty, Eric, each day I spend with you, I love you more and more. I can’t imagine a future where I don’t get to wake up next to you every morning. I want to make you happy for the rest of your life, because you’re the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Eric Richard Bittle, will you marry me?”

With tears streaming down his face, Bitty nodded and bent down to wrap Jack in a hug.

“Yes! Of course! Of course I’ll marry you!”

Jack grinned and slipped the ring onto his boyfriend’s – now fiancée’s – finger. 

The SMH team ran onto the ice, shouting their congratulations and holding the banner high. There would be a party tonight, no doubt. But instead of hiding in his room for this one, Jack would be one of the guests of honor. 

He couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day. 

 

**-103**

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry Jack.”

His eyelids fluttered open, not sure where he was or who was talking to him. It sounded like Parse. But it couldn’t be. 

“I did what I had to do. I just-” the voice started sobbing.

“I just couldn’t lose you.”

No, that can’t be right. Jack was dead. Or he was supposed to be.

The last thing he remembered was the ceiling light, staring down at him, bright as the sun. The pill bottle lay to his right side, empty. Everything hurt and his heart was going fast, too fast, too fast, and everything needed to stop.

He opened his eyes slightly, peering out at the dark room. Kenny’s bedroom. Not a hospital. 

Maybe he was dead. Maybe this was heaven, or hell, or wherever people like him go. Kenny’s bedroom, apparently.

“I’m so sorry,” the voice, Parse, repeated again looking directly at him. 

“…why?” Jack croaked out, his throat still hoarse from the pills and the vomit, which had come later.

“You’re immortal, Jack. You’re like me now.”

 

**+6**

“Happy birthday, Bittle,” Jack said, nudging his sleeping husband. 

“Can’t this birthday boy have ten more minutes of sleep?” Eric muttered, wiggling further under the sheets.

“Not if he wants to see the special birthday surprise in the kitchen,” Jack taunted, getting out of bed and hoping Bitty would follow.

He’d tried to make a pie, and it hadn’t come out nearly as good as Bitty’s, but it was something. Hopefully he liked slightly burnt peach. 

-

“Well, Mr. Zimmermann, I am officially older than you now!” Bittle bragged, eating the pie happily. 

“Eric, I’m 130 years old. You’ll never be older than me.”

“You’re stuck forever at 26 and now I’m 27. You’ll always be an old man, but I’m the only one who will ever actually look like one.”

After finding out Jack’s secret, Bittle had been understanding, but he had no desire to become immortal. And that was his decision to make, and Jack would respect that no matter what.

Even if it tore him apart a little more every day, knowing that he was staying the same but Bittle was moving closer and closer to death. They’d been together seven years now, but to him it felt like months. After living a hundred years, the days and weeks blur together.

He didn’t want that for his time with Bittle. He wanted to enjoy each and every second, because any of them might be Eric’s last. Humans, they’re so fragile. 

But he didn’t say any of that. Instead, he laughed, and carried Eric to the bed for his last birthday present of the day. He certainly wasn’t complaining once Jack got his hands (and his mouth) on him.

 

**-103**

“What the hell did you do to me?!” Jack yelled, throwing anything he could find at Parse. How dare he? How could he change Jack’s life like this, just for fun, just because he couldn’t deal with losing him?

“I saved you, Zimms! You should be grateful that you’re here with me and not six feet under! I saved your fucking life.” Parse thought he had done the right thing, saving his friend’s/boyfriend’s life. Now they could be together forever, literally. 

“I didn’t ask to be saved. You should have let me die! What am I going to tell my parents?”

“You can’t go back there, you know. It’ll look strange when everyone else is getting older except you. You’re 26 forever, Zimms. Embrace it.” And with that, Parse left the room, locking the door from the outside. 

“It’s for your own good! You’ll thank me later, Zimms!”

 

**+10**

Bittle was 31 now and it was starting to show. The lines around his eyes were deeper, etched in from years of laughter and chirping. He didn’t skate as much now that he had the bakery, and he’d gotten a little soft where there used to be muscle.

Jack loved him all the same.

They’d moved to Boston to be closer to Shitty and Lardo, and also because the people in Providence were starting to notice how Jack looked just as young as the day he showed up from college to play for the Falconers. 

He didn’t know where they were going to go next, and it was such a hassle to pack up and move every few years. But he couldn’t let anyone find out what he was. 

Bittle was great about the whole thing, always chattering about which cities they could go to next. He wanted to try the West Coast, maybe meet up with Chowder and see how the Sharks were doing.

 

**-102**

“So do I have to drink blood?”

“Not at all. We’re the better version of vampires. The old kind can’t go in the sun, and they’ve gotta drink blood, but we’re new and improved!” Parse smiled, gesturing to himself. “We’re just like humans, except we don’t age and never die!”

A lifetime with Parse, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, Jack thought. He was cute, and he’d heard there were some cities to the west where people of his kind were more accepted. 

This might not be so bad after all. A cute blonde by his side, and never getting old or dying. Jack could get used to this. 

 

**+20**

Jack was desperate now.

He’d thought that with time, Bittle would come around to the idea of being like Jack. Being with Jack forever. 

But now he was 41, almost 42, and still not budging. 

“I’m sorry, honey, but I just don’t want to. I want to find out where I go after I die, and I want to see MooMaw and mama again. I miss them a lot, sweetheart.”

“I understand.”

And he did. Jack would give anything to see his family again. Maman and Papa Zimmermann were long gone now, but he missed them every day. And Parse, always Parse. 

Bitty was clearly older than him, and sometimes people would congratulate him on getting “such a nice young boyfriend.” Jack hated those people. 

 

**-99**

_Run, run, run, run, faster, farther, get away_

Jack ran as fast as he could, never stopping or looking back. He had to get to the secret spot. He had to make it. He had to.

-

It had been two days, and still no sign of Parse. But he had to come. He always made it to their spot. 

They had been in the store together when someone had seen them. At first, Jack didn’t understand. They had just moved here a year ago. No one could have possibly noticed that they didn’t age yet. That normally took at least five years. 

No, it wasn’t that. 

The man had a problem with the fact that two guys were holding hands. He called them some awful names and pulled a shotgun off the shelf. That’s when the shooting and the angry mob began.

Years later, when he looks back on this, Jack thinks he’ll probably have a laugh about being the cause of a real life angry mob. But right now, all he wants is for Parse to walk through that door smiling and joking about how they were all too distracted by his beauty and he got away. 

-

It’s been a week and Jack hears from a friend that the mob had caught up with Parse. He hands Jack a piece of paper.

“This was all that was left of him by the time they got done.”

He unfolded the note.  
_Zimms,_  
_Happy anniversary. Here’s to a million more._  
_Love always,_  
_Parse_

 

**+40**

It came out of the blue, while they were sitting on the couch watching a movie.

“What are you going to do when I’m gone?” Bittle asked.

“Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it,” Jack answered, turning down the volume so they could hear each other better. 

“Well, honey, I’m not going to be around forever, you know. I’m 60 years old and I’m not planning to live forever like you, handsome.” 

Jack felt that familiar panic start in his chest again, the one that seemed to be there every year on Eric’s birthday and whenever anyone asked if he was Eric’s grandson. 

They couldn’t hold hands or kiss in public anymore, people asked too many questions. 

Shitty had died last year, heart attack due to all the stress he was under as a lawyer.

They’d finally made it out to California to see the coast and Chowder, but he was getting older too. Baby Chowder was an adult now, with kids and grandkids of his own. Him and Farmer were still as happy as they were in college. 

 

**-99**

“Goodbye, Kenny.”

Jack knelt at the patch of dirt, unmarked of course, where Kent (or what was left of him) had been buried. 

“I love you, too.”

Such a shame that Kent would never be alive to hear him say those words.

 

**+63**

“Jack…Honey…” Eric struggled to get the words out, wanting to wake up his husband.

“Eric! Are you alright?”

“It’s time for me to go,” he said, his eyes beginning to close. “I love you…Always…”

Jack held his hand and squeezed tight as he said goodbye to the love of his life. 

“Love you, always, Eric.”

-

Jack punched a hole in the wall of their bedroom with his eyes closed tight so the tears wouldn’t leak out.

-

Ransom and Holster came to the funeral. When they weren’t looking, Jack glared at them. Why did they get to have happiness with each other forever, even after death? Why had life taken away the one thing he cared about?

 

**+64**

Life was different after Bittle. Jack liked to split his life into periods, and this one was A.B., After Bittle. 

He knew he was going to have to move soon, they had been here for six years already. Bittle had liked the warm weather of Arizona. He’d said it was like the sun giving him a big hug every day. 

Jack didn’t want to leave this place, this life behind. But the neighbors were starting to whisper and it was time to go. 

He carefully folded all of his and Bittle’s clothes into suitcases and put the rest into boxes.

When you move as much as they did, you never seem to accumulate very many things. He left the furniture and the appliances, he’d buy new wherever he went. After 200 years or so, he’d stashed plenty of money away. 

Jack took one last look at the house he had shared with Bittle, a tear slipping down his cheek. 

Just when he thought he’d cried out all his tears, there was always another one waiting.

He slammed the car door shut and took off across the country, Beyoncé blaring on the radio. 

“Goodbye, Bittle. I’ll love you, always.”


End file.
